ORG: Galilean Conflict and ORG: The Belt covers the region of the asteroid belt and Jupiter in the struggle for influence and dominance of the solar system in the 24th century by powerful metanational corporations and organizations - the orgs.

Each player takes command of one of these dominant orgs, maneuvering to control the course of history for entire worlds through varied routes to power spanning commercial, cultural, military, political, and research.

Two of six sets in total, each set can be played independently or in conjunction with any of the others. All together, the gameboard stretches over 13 feet long with 20 boards and over 30 worlds.

Since we're still working on the digital game, I thought you might like a quick side project in the form of a boardgame I put together based on the dystopian future of ORG. Available here at The Game Crafter's website. Three additional sets to add to these initial three will be arriving over the next several months.

Story by Geoff Tuffli

• Back to the Fiction of ORG

++++ DATE 6.5.2471
++++ TIME 11:02 Solar Standard Time
++++ LOCATION Suihua Community Center, Novy Ushakovskoye, Mercury

Red paper streamers swayed gently from the airflow generated by the old life support systems as they dragged oxygen out of the vast water reservoir tanks with electrolysis.

Vasily stepped through the community center's entrance with the overtly cautious manner of someone unused to even the relatively moderate gravity of Mercury. Adjusting his shoulderbag, he frowned slightly at the strain of music faintly audible from where he stood. A light step near the doorway, and his frown faded away as soon as it had appeared.

"Katya! Bozhe moi, but you are almost as tall as your mother," Vasily exclaimed with delight as he swept up the younger woman into a rough hug.

"Careful. You don't know your own strength," Katya demured. "Also, I should point out that I am taller than my mother," Katya noted after Vasily had at last released her.

"Ah, Katya. It is good to see you. I am not late?"

Katya shook her head. "The wedding is still over an hour away. There is plenty of time. Cassie is so besotted with Temuder that the rest of the wedding party has simply acceded that this is, really, her day, so no one will notice when one of the other bridegrooms and brides are missing for half an hour or so."

Vasily's face fell. "Der'mo. You know, then. You were not to have been told."

Katya shrugged. "I am neither blind nor stupid. I have known for over a year now, and guessed for far longer. But enough crying, we don't really have all that much time, and the others are very eager to hear your report." She held out her arm. "Shall we?"

Vasily gave her a sour look, but took her arm as Katya led him through the minor labyrinth that was the community center. They moved past the large central hall where crowds of people were gathering through a small service door, down a maintenance corridor, exposed power conduits seeming quite out of place, Vasily thought, at his cousin's wedding. At the ceramic door at the very end Katya rapped lightly. After a moment, the door opened with the bare minimum of protest, and the two were ushered inside.

Story by Kelly Hallman
Song Lyrics for "Coming Home" by Geoff Tuffli

• Back to the Fiction of ORG

++++ DATE 10.3.2463
++++ TIME 02:58 Solar Standard Time
++++ LOCATION Yasu Correctional Facility, Triton, Neptune

Walking down the corridor in her pink prison jumpsuit, the two guards flanking her closely, flechette pistols at their sides, Kazue Tyler had one thought: This oughta be good.

She had always known what the result of her capture would be. She was no martyr; she was not looking forward to her execution, but she thought she had come to peace with the inevitability.

Kazue wondered if it would be worth trying to grab for one of the pistols – that would at least end it quickly. She tested the magnetic pull of her restraints, but there was no give, not that she had really expected any.

She walked into the cold white room, her escorts still flanking her. My posse, she thought mockingly, a smile creeping up to her lips.

A lone table and two chairs opposite each other were bolted to the grated floor. Kazue moved in front of the chair, where the guard on her right adjusted the proximity that her wrist straps would allow.

She moved them in front of her and sat down. The guard then readjusted the proximity sensors on the straps and locked her into the chair.

"Thanks, guys," she said casually as the guards turned and left the room through the door they had come in through.

Her gaze decided on staring at the table’s computer’s time display.

Five minutes passed, then ten.

She yawned.

Fifteen minutes passed. A loud bang startled her. She jumped, and her wrist straps tightened their hold on her, and a man in plain white walked into the room. He took the chair opposite her, and regarded her with a carefully schooled expression.

"It's only 0300 hours," Kazue said sourly. "What could have possibly possessed you to drag me out of sleep at this ungodly hour?"

"Ms. Tyler, I am here to inform you that your punishment has been approved by the Department of Corrections."

"Well, clearly this couldn’t have waited until tomorrow so, by all means then, let’s not let the executioners of the Democratic Republic of Triton wait."

Baristol touched the table near her hand. "Relax. Death penalty yes, but not physical death."

Her muscles twitched slightly. "Psych death, then."

"Ah yes, you were hoping to go out in a blaze of glory," he leaned back. "Terrorists generally do prefer that kind of exit."

Ignoring her fidgeting, Baristol cleared his throat. "Neuroscience allows us to pinpoint areas of the brain specifically involved in antisocial behaviors, as well as those associated memories and personality traits that have had an influence in the development these behaviors."

He touched the table’s terminal, bringing up a holographic model of a human brain.

Rotating, exposing, and enlarging the model as he spoke, Dr. Baristol continued as if giving a lecture. “Areas around the anterior frontal lobe that we find have a connection to your violent tendencies will be lesioned out."

"Lesioned?"

"Yes. I will be severing any connections this area of the brain has to various other parts to inhibit similar such violent inclinations in your new future."

The model suddenly rotated and a longitudinal cut was made across the side facing her, exposing the internal structures of the temporal lobe.

“Following that I will lesion out those Hippocampal areas associated with memories of the crime, as well as any memories judged to have contributed to the commission of the crime. Finally, I will inject stem cells derived from your own cheek into the lesioned areas. The areas will be have hyperwave stimulation applied to them, regrowing those areas of the brain earlier lesioned out. New memories will be implanted over the span of a week or so, of course."

"And...after?"

“After, of course, you will be reintegrated into society. You will pursue your interests and relationships as a normal, functioning member of society."

Kazue swallowed, but said nothing.

"We consider this to be more humane than pushing you out an airlock." Baristol leaned back. "Which was, actually, one of the options discussed."

Story by Geoff Tuffli

• Back to the Fiction of ORG

++++ DATE 2.5.2469
++++ TIME Period 7.1.9
++++ LOCATION Manufactory 9, Division T, Alpha Complex, Orcus

The comm crackled for a moment. "Work hard, increase production, and be happy," urged the soothing voice.

Gregory 7566-1 bowed his head, making the sign of the circle on his bare skull, completing the motion by touching where the center of the circle had been drawn. He tried not to, but could not help but glance at his work partner, noting with troubled disapproval that Lucida 9566-2 was blithely ignoring the comm.

Lucida noticed his scowl, and smiled impishly. "You worry too much."

"TruthSec could be watching," Gregory insisted.

"Not from that comm," Lucida remarked. "That one has been waiting for a capacitor replacement for eighteen periods now."

Gregory looked uncomfortable. "Still, someone might say something."

"Let them. They will not be saying anything TruthSec does not already know."

"You are going to get us both in trouble."

"You worry too much," Lucida said again. She glanced at the chronometer on the wall. "Besides, our work cycle has been over for the last 0.1.0 periods, so if it pleases you to continue work do not let me stop you, but I am returning to the creche."

"I am going to look at the comm again. Maybe I can bridge the gap on the capacitor and get it working," Gregory considered. "I will see you in a bit then," he said, glancing at her. "Work hard," he said.

"Be happy," she replied cheerily as she picked up her own tool kit and made her way back down the corridor.

Gregory reached for the multi-tool at his belt, stepping beneath the comm, looking up at it. Perhaps some conductive cement would pass enough of a charge to get it functioning again? Likely not, but leaving the work unfinished left a bad taste in his mouth. "It might work," he said aloud to himself dubiously as he stretched up to unfasten the outer casement on the comm.

"Not generally, in my limited experience," came a new voice from behind him. "But my engineering skills are rather, shall we say, atrophied."

Gregory spun, his multi-tool slipping from his fingers to clatter on the floor. He frowned at the man standing in front of him. "What is that on your head?" Gregory declared quizzically, kneeling to retrieve the fallen multi-tool. He stood, continuing to stare.

The man frowned, touching his head. "Ah, hair."

"I have heard of that," Gregory nodded. "A vestigal evolutionary trait, since removed from our genepool for sanitary reasons. Clogs air fliters and the like." He looked confused. "But how do you have...hair?"

Story by Geoff Tuffli

• Back to the Fiction of ORG

++++ DATE 20.6.2470
++++ TIME 15:50 GST
++++ LOCATION Aboard the Dreadnought Valkyrie docked at Urda, Koronian Cluster, Asteroid Belt

Perched like a queen wasp on an oddly-shaped boulder, automated refit drones swarmed around the docked dreadnought, every last one of them slaved to the single task of transforming the aging battleship into a form more fitting to its counterfeited purpose.

In truth, the Ganymedian military base was little more than a refueling station and listening post with only an intermittent human presence even in normal times, although the base did have an attached shipyard equipped for basic repairs and nominal refitting. At that precise moment, however, there were only two humans between ship and station, both of them on the dreadnought itself.

"I have actually always suspected the universe of a sense of humor," Lieutenant Erik Manstein remarked as he ran the power systems through another diagnostic cycle.

Piers Turchin looked up. "Excuse me?" The macrosociologist was a tall man with thin features, the former evidence of an upbringing in the microgravity of one of Jupiter's great moons; the latter evidence of a predisposition to lack of sleep and care towards regular nutritional habits.

Erik nodded at the screen, the visual relayed from one of the external cameras. "The base here, at Urda, is named after one of the Norns from Norse mythology. Urd means 'Fate', and refers to that Norn who knows the pasts of all things. Given the stolen registry we are refitting our warhorse of a dreadnought to pretend to be, I find that particularly amusing."

Piers chuckled. "Ah. Yes. Valkyrie is rather appropriate, given that. Hopefully that will be an auspicious sign for this noble venture of ours."

"To be sure. We only need to make a mothballed dreadnought into a Ganymedian ship pretending to be a Callistan ship pretending to be a Ganymedian ship, all for the preposterous purpose of destroying a flotilla belonging to our would-be Europan allies to drive said would-be allies into our very, very welcoming arms. What could possibly go wrong?"

Piers did not deign to answer. Instead he called up a schematic of the main hangar bay onto the main screen. He pointed at one side. "I wanted to ask you about something. What exactly are you doing here?"

"Ah, that. I had a bit of an idea there. Instead of integrating the artificials directly into the dreadnought's own mainframe, I have directed the refit drones to gut eleven of the dreadnought's combat drones of C&C modules, munitions, HED capacitors, all that kind of thing, and just pack the artificial's own transit mainframes, one to one into a drone."

"Not sure I'm seeing the advantage."

Erik ticked off points on his fingers. "Several, actually. First, we don't have to risk messing with the dreadnought's own mainframe directly. Given that it's not exactly a spring chicken, that minimizes opportunities for complications, meaning delays. Second, if something goes wrong we can simply destruct the drones, and any Europan analysis of the wreckage won't result in them wondering why exactly we were flying this old bird with a bunch of artificials. Third, the drones have their own power systems, so scans of the power net on the Valkyrie won't flag any alerts."

The macrosociologist opened his mouth to speak, but stopped as his terminal chimed.

Story by Geoff Tuffli

• Back to the Fiction of ORG

++++ DATE 18.11.2042
++++ TIME 8:03am Pacific Standard Time
++++ LOCATION Los Angeles, United States of America

Ben Walsh pulled out the tiny notebook, placing it on the table as he slid the chewed pen off the binding. He flipped it open two-thirds of the way through, the dense handwriting almost unreadable at that size, but with paper as expensive as it was, efficiency and economy were simply facts of life. Ben squinted, and with a unconscious shake of his head scratched out two lines, redoing the math.

"Please tell me you aren't still thinking of doing this, Ben."

Ben looked up, pen spinning absently in his fingers. "I have to. Someone has to. We can't afford all of us here, Cian."

Cian shook his head. "Dad doesn't want to see you dead, either. This is crazy."

"I'm not planning on being dead. I'm not naive about how hard this will be, but it's doable. I've run the numbers a hundred times." Ben tapped the page he was on. "I don't think the Sierras are realistic, though. It'll have to be the coastal route. There's no way I can take 67 pounds of gear and supplies over those and maintain anything close to a reasonable time. I'll travel early morning and evening, hole up during the night and the middle of the day to keep my water loss from heat to a minimum. Also reduce chance of running into local police looking for a quick score."

"You don't even have a bike, Ben," Cian said, exasperated.

"Not yet. Murray's is still for sale."

"Eight hundred dollars you don't have."

"I will. Somehow. I have almost everything else ready. Just need to pick up a case of MREs tonight, and the bike will be the last thing. I have five hundred. Murray's not even using it. He's got to see sense."

Cian rubbed the bridge of his nose, screwing his eyes shut for a moment as he considered his words. "Okay, say I believe you. Convince me again how this isn't suicide."

"Alright," Ben said, flipping back through his notebook. "It's 1003 miles from here to Ashland taking a mostly coastal route. Up through Ojai through the Los Padres, circle around San Luis from the north, then take the 101 or anything parallel I can find through San Jose. From there, using the 101 as the primary route, I cut through the 199 after Crescent City to cross the border. With 67 pounds of weight, I should be able to comfortably make about fifty miles a day, maybe more, which'll make it about three weeks."

"They'll still have community watch patrols at the Oregon border, even there."

"Yeah, but there are a few fire roads running parallel. It won't be easy, but I can cut across them, then carry the bike overland. Worst case, it shouldn't be more than about a mile or two from what I can tell on the map," Ben said.

Story by Geoff Tuffli

• Back to the Fiction of ORG

++++ DATE 28.2.2464
++++ TIME 12:31 Solar Standard Time
++++ LOCATION Onboard the station The Ark, 3561 km matching velocity to Martian Trojan Asteroid 5261 Eureka

First, there was only a vague sensation of warmth.

It built slowly, a growing thing that his mind struggled to shape into a word. There. Warmth he thought. I am warm. More thoughts followed. Nausea. Vertigo. Oxygen. Oxygen. Oh god I need to breath...

He opened his eyes.

An older man, clean-shaven and ebony so dark he seemed almost to glow in the bright station light. Leaning over where he lay on his back gasping and choking was a blonde woman with a too-even complexion and a look of stock consideration in eyes that were similarly too clear, too unblinking.

"Mr. Rivera? Isaac Rivera?" the older man was asking him.

Isaac waved him off, still coughing as he pushed himself to a seating position. The blonde woman held a square bowl in front of him. He spit into it, coughed, spat some more. "Madre de Dios, how I fucking hate cryo," he said hoarsely.

The older man relaxed almost imperceptibly. "Mr. Rivera, I am Station Administrator John Mokwena. Welcome to the Ark. We're glad to have you here."

"I'm not," Isaac said. "But the money was too good to pass up, even with the glorious promise of months in cryo."

John shook his head. "I apologize for the necessity, but for reasons of corporate security we needed to bring you here in a rather roundabout manner. The rest of us did as well."

Isaac looked at the blonde woman. "She was never in cryo."

"Well, no. Forgive me, I have been remiss in my courtesies. This is Erinna-CIT-59-M. Currently, at least."

The blonde woman smiled. "How do you do, Mr. Rivera? This is not actually my specialty, but I am versed in cryogenic complications, not that any such are in evidence."

Isaac accepted a cup of something hot that might have even been coffee from John with a nod of thanks. He looked quizzically at her. "CIT?"

Erinna nodded. "Yes. My sisters and I remain under contract, but have our provisional citizen classifications, legally recognized in both the Southern Bloc and on Mars. And the Hildas Triangle, of course." She smiled, flashing dimples.

"That's a hell of a chassis you have there. I almost thought you were human."

"It is," she agreed. "Carlisle Pharmaceuticals was most eager to obtain both our cooperation and our discretion, therefore we thought it a reasonable condition of our indentured service. Among other conditions, of course. It wouldn't pass any kind of real biometric scan, but short of that it is usually sufficient to pass for fully human."

Isaac grunted. "Well, I'm here. Shall we get started?"

John lifted an eyebrow. "You are quite certain you would not like to rest first? We have prepared quarters for you in A Ring."

"I am quite certain I would not. I have been resting for far too long, and no offense to anyone here, but I'd like to finish what I came here to do and get the fuck back home."

John nodded. "Very well, then. Once you are dressed join us outside, please."

Story by Geoff Tuffli

• Back to the Fiction of ORG

++++ DATE 13.1.2469
++++ TIME 17:25 Solar Standard Time
++++ LOCATION Kracatena, Triton, Neptune

Keep it cool, Miyu told herself. Uneven spoils the balance.

The oscillations of the sled reverberated through her prone body like the palpitations of the heart beat of some giant, monstrous creature. And indeed, there probably was some truth to that, as Miyu's sled slipped through the old unused transit tubes that formed the early arteries of the earliest days of Triton's colonization.

The sled was barely as long as Miyu herself, the parallel conducting rails reacting against the transit tubes themselves as a kind of inverted railgun allowing the sled to accelerate to staggering speeds that tested the very limits of human reaction times in the tight tunnels. At the prow of the sled was a light and a proximity sensor; in front of Miyu's face was a tiny readout that fed her precious little information to make corrections; her subcutaneous node transmitted the presentation feed.

Her speed was good, too, clocking a mean of 512 kilometers per hour so far, but she still had a ways to go, and coming up fast was the third of six places where her current tunnel converged with another one, this one for half a klick. Beyond that the converged tunnel would split again, and she'd have a choice. Slow and steady, or faster and riskier through a narrower tunnel. Miyu's sled lurched as the electomagnetic generator hiccuped, and she slid close to one of the walls.

Idiot, she chided herself. Way too close that time.

In her ear the presentation feed roared with a cheer.

"Now, that was a tight call," Nick Czar's always slightly sly voice exclaimed in her ear through the feed. "Four of five Miyu Onbekend just about tossed out her port armature with that last one!" To Miyu he almost sounded disappointed; the audience tuned in always with the unspoken hope that one of the sleds would crash.

For Nick Czar, that would only improve his own personal blog ratings. For Miyu, the price hardly seemed worth it, but if she had wanted to live forever she would have gone to school to be a transit comptroller.

Her sled dipped into the convergence, and sure enough, coming up behind her from the other tunnel was one of the other sleds. Miyu glanced at her rearward camera to see who it was, but the other sled's forward light was too bright. No matter.

The other sled was gaining fast, however, and almost too late Miyu saw what they were going for. She had assumed they were just going to try to pass her, but as she saw the other sled drifting in her wake but slightly to the side she understood what was about to happen. Sure enough, the other sled suddenly rocked forward beside her, attempting to disrupt her own sled's ability to react against the transit tube's wall.

Both sleds twisted, Miyu's wrenching violently up, the other sled to the right.

Miyu narrowed her eyes. Fine. You want to play that game, asshole? Instead of trying to completely correct her sled's vector, she instead let her sled's rear drift left just as she angled her prow down.

The result was murderous. Miyu's sled's new orientation put her starboard rail reacting at an angle against the top of the other sled just as it was attempting its own recovery. The feedback caused the other sled to buckle, then flip, crashing in eerie silence into the side of the airless tunnel. Miyu allowed herself a faint smile.

This time the feed in her ear went berserk. "Holy hells, did you see that?" Nick Czar yelled. "I'm not sure exactly what just happened, so we'll have to check the replay, but the result has four of five Miyu Onbekend now in the lead, taken from two of five Hammer Castillo who is now plastered, and I mean plastered on the side of the A15 tube!"